Spec Dinosauria: Oviraptorosauria
Oviraptorosaurs are a strange group of maniraptors that made their début in the fossil record of Early Cretaceous Asia, if not earlier, as small... probable omnivores such as †''Caudipteryx'' and continued through the Mesozoic and early Cenozoic as generalist/predators. CAENAGNATHIDAE (Vulgures, hogbirds, glucks, streks, etc.) The end of the Eocene marked the extinction of the more flamboyantly strange oviraptorids, but the caenagnathids survive to the present day in northern Eurasia and North America. At first, a feathered, bipedal, long-necked, long-legged caenagnathid seems little different from any other small, predatory dinosaur. However, their toothless beaks, relatively short tails, and various anatomical details like their odd mandibular joints, distinguish these theropods as oviraptorosaurs. VULTUROSAURINAE (Vulgures) Unquestionably the most successful of the oviraptorosaur clades, vulgures are found across Eurasia, northern Africa, and North America. More heavily-built and catholic in diet than the deinonychosaurs, vulgures tackle a very wide range of food. These adaptable creatures have been known to eat fish, birds, carrion, grasses, tubers, fungi, insects, mammals – in short, anything organic that isn't outright poisonous. Most vulgures are small, no more than two metres in length, but a few species reach larger sizes. A small but very widespread vulgure, the gollum is a carnivore/scavenger of the forest. These little creatures range from Great Britain to Russia, with related species spread across the northern hemisphere. Like most other vulgures, gollums are nocturnal, hunting at night and thereby avoiding direct competition with other small predators like harracks and bruisers. Probably because of the presence of bruisers across much of the gollums' preferred habitats, these little oviraptorosaurs are only indifferent scavengers. While gollums are as omnivorous as any other vulgure, they show a marked taste for fresh meat, which they can easily hunt with their sharp manual talons and ripping beaks. Gollums subsist mostly on a diet of mammals, birds, and fish, and also often raid the nests of other dinosaurs for eggs. (fig. 1) Gollum, Noctivagus smeagol (Europe Despite being a close relative of the diminutive gollums, the grisly vulgure is one of the largest meat-eating maniraptorans of Eurasia. Though best known as a scavenger and a carrion-robber, its tendencies for carnivory aren't nearly as strong as one might assume based on its vulture- or harpy-like appearance. Vulgures are, in fact, closer in ecology to Home-Earth bears than to anything else, and the grisly vulgure is the aptly-named giant of the clade, a massive creature often exceeding four metres in length. Grisly vulgures exist in many regional subspecies extending from Scandinavia and the Atlas mountains to western North America. They do, in fact, kill and eat small animals, dinosaur chicks, and sometimes even fish. Most of their diet, however, consists of nuts, berries, roots, shoots, mushrooms and other herbaceous growth. Grislies are truly opportunistic omnivores, and often amongst the first dinosaurs to gather around the annual feast of the salmonite run. (fig. 2) Grisly vulgure, Vulturosaurus acerbus ''(Holarctic) Because of their size (large females can exceed the length of 4 meters), grisly vulgures can usually rip apart any likely-looking food they happen to find, be it a honey-tree or a lammox carcass. The only predators to match or surpass grisly vulgures in size are barbaroraptors and tyrannosaurs, but the oviraptorosaurs will gang together to drive even a hungry drakhan or strider from a fresh kill. When the female grisly comes into heat, she calls for potential mates with a ghastly howl, which can be heard many kilometers beyond the boundaries of her territory. These mating calls were known to spexplorers for many years before their source and meaning had been unraveled. This lead to the legend of the "boreal banshee", a name still occasionally used for the grisly vulgure itself. A related species, the savanna vulger (''Vulturosaurus africanus), contributes to making the African savannas an unsafe but relatively clean place (though the crunchercrocs often reach a carcass faster). Due to its red the North American red vulgure (Vulturosaurus americanus) could almost be confused with the Indian red vulgure (V. ruber), which is a close relative of the savanna vulgure. However, the North American species must have split relatively early from the branch that led to the other vulgures, as shown by its retention of several "old-fashioned" anatomical features. Together with certain fossils, it suggests that the vulgure clade evolved in North America. Most North American red vulgures live farther south than any grisly vulgure; where the two species overlap, competition is nevertheless avoided, because the red vulgures are smaller. (fig. 3) North American red vulgure, Vulturosaurus americanus (central and southern North America) SUINAVIINAE (Glucks and hogbirds) Suinaviinae is an odd group of slender, long-legged caenagnathids with a predilection for foliage. These little animals much like Home-Earth pigs in their habits. The fossil record of oviraptorosaurs in the Tertiary is notoriously poor, but mitochondrial analysis indicates a wide gap between the vulturosaurines and the suinaviines + cervaviines (although these groups are more closely related to each other than to the weird neopsittacids). Based upon this data and some fossil fragments from Spec's Pakistan, specbiologists believe that Suinaviinae and Vulturosaurinae parted ways in the Miocene Since that time, the glucks and hogbirds have diversified further and now consist of several clades of omnivorous runners. The red-hat gluck (Gallocephalus macdonaldi) is a typical gluck (Gallocephalini). Like all African glucks, the red-hat lacks a crest, but its neck skin is bare and brightly coloured in males, with a red wattle adding to the effect. The long pedal claws are used for digging up roots or burrowing animals (or inflict nasty wounds to anyone foolish enough to attack the ronald from the front). Red-hat glucks can be found across the dry savannas of Africa. (fig. 4) Red-hat gluck, Gallocephaus macdonaldi (subsaharan Africa) (fig. 5) Combed gluck, Gallocephalus meleagrides It is easy to see why early spexplorers gave the nostritch (Pseudostruthio africanus) its name. Through convergent evolution, this taxon has come to closely resemble the ostriches of Home-Earth and the ornithomimids of both worlds, as well as the streks of Spec (see below). The nostritch is actually a large gluck, even though it hardly even looks oviraptorosaurian. Nostriches are fairly widespread across Africa on both sides of the Sahara, as well as in the Middle East. Fossils, however, indicate that these odd creatures evolved in the Eurasian steppe when it was warmer, around the Miocene-Pliocene boundary. (fig. 6) Nostrich, Pseudostruthio africanus ''(Africa and Middle East) When specbiologists first observed a living ''Suinavis asper, they must have wondered if they were looking at a bird or a pig, since they immediately decided to name it the hogfowl. For reasons now forgotten, the name has since come to mean the British subspecies, and the common name of the Eurasia-wide occurring species has changed to hogbird. The basic implication of the name, however, remains the same. This forest-dwelling Eurasian animal is indeed very much like wild boar on chicken legs, despite the external differences (and a couple of internal ones as well) and its somewhat larger size (up to 1.5 m in total length). Hogbirds are omnivorous, leaning towards herbivory. It is hard to think of anything edible hogbirds wouldn't at least attempt to swallow, and so it is no surprise that they are some of the most adaptable animals on the continent. Hogbirds are, however, limited to the temperate and subtropical zones. The green-brown-black colouration of a hogbird's stiff, hair-like plumage blends into the background of the forest. The feathers on its back and neck are in fact quite stiff and prickly – though nowhere near as sharp as the quills of a manticorant. When you add to that the sharp claws on a hogbird's hands and feet, and of course its fearless and aggressive nature, one has to wonder why anything would want to try their luck with one of them. They are, however, among the principal prey of draks. (fig. 6) Hogbird, Suinavis asper (western and northern Eurasia) (fig. 7) Greater jungle hogbird, Choerornis silvester (central Africa) The jungle hogbirds (Choerornis) of Africa's rainforests are close relatives of the hogbird. Up to 2 m in length, these stocky animals like to scavenge, and have been seen running after paraselenodonts, but normally they eat leaves, shoots and fallen fruits. Jungle hogbirds also use their strong arms to pull branches down, seegnosaur-style. ARIAVIINAE (Ramfowl and snowstrek) During the late Miocene, a clade closely related to Suinaviinae reached the cooler parts of North America. Largely pure herbivores, these dinosaurs have converged heavily upon the streks (see below) and were at first classified with them. Ariaviinae achieved a moderate but short-lived diversity in the late Miocene and early Pliocene, of which only not! the ramfowl and the snowstrek remain. The 1.5 m long ramfowl (Ariavis montanus) is North America's answer to the mountain-streks. It lives in grassy areas in the Rocky Mountains. Males have wide and thick bone and keratin crests that function much the same way as mountain sheep horns: the males will bang their horny crests together to establish dominance. (fig. 8) Ramfowl, Ariavis montana (North America – Rocky Mountains) Quite similar to a true strek except for its long feathers, the snowstrek (Villopluma rostricornu) is thought to have spread from the frigid mountains to the frigid plains in some ice age or other. Large herds of these 2 m long animals now roam the arctotitan steppes that encircle the Arctic Ocean. This freezing habitat has led to certain specializations, such as the flat horn-like crest found in both sexes, which can be used to dig for food from under a thin cover of snow, and the enlargened nasal cavity that forms a very distinct bump on both sides of the head. (fig. 9) Snowstrek, Villopluma rostricornu (Holarctic arctotitan steppes) CERVAVIINAE (Streks and mountain-streks) The Ice Age of the late Pliocene and Pliestocene profoundly altered the balance of the northern hemisphere's animal life, much more so than it did in our timeline. While Home-Earth, ruled by furry mammals, saw much extinction and re-arrangement of species as the glaciers ground southward, these ecological perturbations pale in comparison to the massive upheavals of Spec's late Pliocene and Pleistocene, as entire groups of large, scaly herbivores found themselves suddenly unsuited to their environment. Titanosaurs, Hadrosaurs, and Ceratopsians vanished from Europe, Asia north of the Himalayas, and most of North America in a geological eyeblink, and their replacement is a process that is still under way. Segnosaurs, of course, quickly placed themselves in all large herbivore niches in this vast area; some, the panhas and lemeks, even readapted to a running lifestyle. Some mammals, the specerotheres, started growing tremendously. But oviraptorosaurs participated in the run. Having just diverged from the glucks and hogbirds, the streks and mountain-streks quickly became the most diverse cursorial herbivores of the coniferous and mixed forests as well as the freezing mountain ranges of the northern hemisphere, keeping the mainly grass-eating ceronychids from becoming important leaf-eaters, and the specerotheres from growing to the sizes of Home-Earth's "ungulates" (if we ignore the caripoo which lives in the oviraptorosaur-free tundra). Streks and mountain-streks are anatomically only a little different from their omnivorous cousins, and most of the changes are associate with a shift in diet toward strict herbivory. Their skulls are stronger than those of other caenagnathids and better capable of crushing woody plant material, the air-filled chambers that characterize the pneumatic heads of most maniraptors having been largely replaced by bone. The gut is expanded, forcing the pubes back, as in segnosaurs and ornithscians. The hands are small, the fingers only weakly clawed, but the legs are long and powerful. The gold-crested strek (Cervavis reconcilius) is one of the largest Eurasian streks (Cervaviini), growing up to two meters tall. The male has a large yellow and black crest on his head, similar to the bony casque sported by the long extinct †''Oviraptor'', the streks' distant relative. The gold-crested strek's crest is not bone, however, but keratin, an extension of the beak that runs backward along the skull and flares up into a flag signaling the male's potency during the mating season, when it is used in ritual battles over the domination of harems of up to 20 females. The males' crests, along with the females' smaller, black knobs, also serve as protection against branches and thorns as the streks run through the forest, serving much the same function as a Home-Earth cassowary's casque. (fig. 8) Male gold-crested strek, Cervavis reconcilius, and head of female (western and northern Eurasia Smaller and more lightly built than gold-crested strek, the johnny deere (Elaphornis deerei) is perhaps the most common strek. The casque of males of this species becomes bright green during mating time. The mountain-streks (Caprogallini) have settled in Eurasia's mountain ranges. They have developped shorter bodies and necks to save heat in their treeless environments. The vertebrae at the tail base are lengthened, producing a long balancing tail. Broadly comparable to the chamois, ibex and various mountain "goats" of our timeline, mountain streks run and jump much, but are also well suited for actual climbing thanks to their long, clawed toes and long, strong, mobile arms. Mountain-streks tend not to stray close to or above the snowline like honas and upclaws, but feed mainly on the tough mountain vegetation and other foodstuffs found along the craggy mountainsides. Due to the interesting details of their evolutionary history as a group, the species are fairly distanced from one another, due to their isolation in mountainous areas. From the typical base features of the Pliocene lowland members of the group similar features arose somewhat independently, like the longer claws and the shorter neck. However, the fossil record and genetic testing show that all mountain-streks are closely related; it is assumed that they migrated between Eurasia's largely near-contiguous mountain belts in the ice ages when the tundra-like conditions of the high mountains also ruled the plains. (fig. 10) Male gamsgans, Rupricapranser alpinus, in mating season (Alps, Pyrenees, Apennines and Carpathians) (fig. 11) Male Himalaya mountain-strek, Caprogallus tibetanus, in mating season (Himalayas, Pamir, Hindukush, Tian Shan) The Himalaya mountain-strek (Caprogallus tibetanus) has a much larger in-season breeding crest than the gamsgans. (Seedcrackers) Seedcrackers are highly derived oviraptorosaurs whose cranial anatomy differs immensely from other species of the clade. In the seedcrackers, the beak has evolved to deal with hard seeds and nuts. This extreme specialisation has caused a de-pneumatization of the skull similar to that seen in the streks, but the seedcrackers are only distantly related to that relatively new branch of the oviraptorosaur tree. Seedcrackers probably evolved early in the Cenozoic, but the nature of their ancestors remains mysterious. Most palaeontologists ally them with the caenagnathids, making them cousins to the glucks, streks and vulgures, but others, pointing mostly to hand anatomy, place the otherwise long-extinct oviraptorids (like †''Oviraptor'' itself) as the most likely ancestors of the seedcrackers. Still others place the roots of this clade even further back, finding links with the Early Cretaceous †''Incisivosaurus''. This hypothesis in particular is hotly contested, and only new fossils can shed light on the issue. Possessing excellent eyesight and an advanced sense of smell, the crimson seedcracker (Neopsittacus sanguineus) is a tiny species (25 cm in length), found only in the jungles of southeastern Asia. Male of the species sing a rich repertoire of melodies and are fiercely territorial, attacking any member of their species who sports more red plumage than they do. Female plumage is a drabber version of the males'. (fig. 12) Crimson seedcracker, Neopsittacus sanguineus ''(southeast Asia); about natural size (fig. 13) Cenobite seedcracker, ''Nucirepertor cenobitoides ''(southeast Asia) The cenobite seedcracker (''Nucirepertor cenobitoides), arguably the most beautiful seedcracker species, lives in a bizarre, complicated symbiosis with the paintree and the nettletree throughout southeast Asia. Reaching up to 1 m in total length, it is not as tiny as the crimson seedcracker, but still as small as expected for a ground-living seed- and fruit-eater. (fig. 7) Gorillabird, Hapaloraptor robustus (central Africa) Deep in the green hell of Africa there resides a big black beast with a green underside and green stripes on its legs. It seems to be exclusively herbivorous (unlike the black beast!), but fearsome tales are told of its enormous strength. Hard facts about the gorillabird (Hapaloraptor robustus), however, are hard to come by. Despite its small tail, it reaches a length of 6 m (not 8 as the first expedition claimed), and its well-guarded nests contain only 2 eggs the size of rugby balls. Preliminary investigations place this mighty oviraptorosaur next to the tiny seedcrackers, based mainly on its large, powerful head, its impressive beak, and limited genetic evidence. This result produces more riddles than it solves. Why are there big and small seedcrackers, but none of intermediate sizes? Did seedcrackers evolve in Asia or Africa? What does it need this extra-huge head for – are there some sort of coconuts in Spec's African rainforests? Even this is not yet known. Daniel Bensen, Tiina Aumala, João Boto, Timothy Morris and David Marjanović ---- ,=Noctivagus smeagol (Gollum) | ,=Vuturosaurinae=| ,=V. acerbus (Grisly vulgure) | | ,=| | | | | ,=V. ruber (Indian red vulgure) | `=Vulturosaurus=| `=| | | `=V. africanus (Savanna vulgure) | | | `=V. americanus (American red vulgure) | | ,=G. mcdonaldi (Red-hat gluck) ,=Caenagnathidae=| ,=Gallocephalus=| | | ,=Gallocephalini=| `=G. meleagrides (Combed gluck) | | | | | | ,=Suivaviinae=| `=Pseudostruthio altus (Nostritch) | | | | | | | | ,=Suinavis asper (Hogbird) | | | `=Suinaviini=| | | ,=| `=Choerornis silvester (Greater jungle hogbird) | | | | | | | `=Ariaviinae=Ariavis montana (Ramfowl) | `=| | | | | ,=Ceravis reconcilius (Gold-crestted strek) | | ,=Cervaviini=| =Oviraptorosauria=| | | `=Elaphornis deerei (Johnny deere) | `=Cervaviinae=| | | ,=Rupricapranser alpinus (Gamsgans) | | ,=| | | | `=Caprogallus tibetanus(Himalaya mountain-strek) | `=Caprogallini=| | `=Villopluma rostricornu (Snowstrek) | |=Oviraptoridae=Oviraptor | |=Caudipteryx | |=Incisivosaurus | | ,=?Hapaloraptor robustus (Gorillabird) `=?Neopsittacidae=| | ,=N. sanguineus (Crimson seedcracker) `=Nuciraptor=| `=N. cenobitoides (Cenobite seedcracker) Category:Dinosaurs Category:Spec Dinosauria Category:Animals Category:Europe Category:Asia Category:Africa Category:North America Category:Alternative evolution Category:Alternative timelines Category:Alternate History Animals Category:Saurischia Category:Theropods Category:Maniraptorans Category:Pennaraptorans